I just read The Perforated Sheet for class and it got me thinking about the cross-cultural differences in how women are treated and viewed. The setting of the story is India, almost a century before. In the story there is a young woman by the name of Naseem. She is a sickly girl who’s frailty forces the main character Aadam, a doctor, to frequent her house.
Now the reason I thought this story is interesting is in how Naseem is treated, and how the other two women are described. Naseem is treated in quite a stereotypical way, by her father. Even though she must be inspected by the doctor, Aadam must stay behind a sheet so as not to see her body. It’s quite clear that the father is very protective and that it is expected of Naseem to be chaste and innocent. This seems to play on the cultural ideal of femininity. It is something that is weak and frail, like the health of Naseem, and must be protected and shielded from the world.
In fact Naseem does have protectors; these protectors are two strong women who are described as being built like wrestlers. This is truly interesting, the role of protector does not fall on the father, but other women. It suggests to me, that only women can be trusted with protecting other women in that society. The contrast between Naseem’s obvious frailty and the protectors’ strength raises some questions as well. Why is it that the protectors are not treated the same way Naseem is, why can they accept this, seemingly, masculine job. Is it suggestive of western influences leaking into India; Aadam is a doctor who has just recently returned from Germany after all.
Finally at the end of the story, when Naseem and Aadam finally get to see each other’s faces and joke, there is this strange moment where Naseem’s father laughs and smiles in this somewhat disturbing manner. It makes me think back to when Aadam first arrives to treat Naseem, and he says that he should have listened to his impulse telling him to run. It made me think that the father had planned everything out to make Aadam fall for his daughter.
Pushing the creepy aspect of this interpretation aside, it definitely brings up the tradition of arranged marriages in India. It has been a long standing tradition, and even now, many people are being forced into loveless marriages in India. Even the young immigrants who come to the States to earn an education, often are forced by tradition and pressure to marry someone arranged by their parents. As someone who is born and raised in an individualist culture, it is quite shocking that people are still forcing marriages and treating them as merger tools.
The traditional feminine ideals of how a women should act and be viewed haven’t all gone away. Every Indian girl that I have met comes from a family where they are to show the bare minimum of skin. They are not allowed to date (some still can’t even after entering college). They have to listen to their father, since he is the patriarch of the family. There are very strict rules on their behavior and dress; it all seems very ridiculous to me. Then considering that arranged marriages are still common events in Indian households, can we say that much has changed? Just as old habits die hard, old traditions do as well.